Tuesday, 4 March 2014

I've come to the conclusion that reviewing any of the individual episodes of The Wes Anderson Movie, which is now in its eighteenth year of production, is an exercise in staggering futility. If you enjoy the other parts then you'll enjoy Episode 8: The Grand Budapest Hotel, probably immensely. If you don't like the others, you probably won't like this one. And if, like me, you have no strong feelings either way, then guess what?

If you've never seen any episodes of The Wes Anderson Movie, then this is as good a one to watch as any: it's the apotheosis of his uniquely genius / gratingly irritating (delete as applicable) style, with symmetrical, borderline-OCD compositions, 90-degree pans, meticulous production design, wacky characters, a tremendous soundtrack and Owen Wilson all popping up as ordained by the Prophecy which I believe Bill Murray delivered on the day Anderson first picked up a camera. In its favour, this episode does have a panoply of splendid facial hair, a glorious variety of aspect ratios (most of it is shot in 1.33:1) and a more tremendous soundtrack than most, but otherwise it's business as usual. I look forward to copying and pasting most of this post in a couple of years for Episode 9.